The Australian sharemarket is up today, gaining 21.00 points or 0.26% to 8,112.90 and setting a new 20-day high.
The top performers were Smartgroup Corporation Ltd and Healius Ltd, up 5.62% and 4.79% respectively.
Over the last five days, the index has gained 1.11% and is currently 0.44% off its 52-week high
Across the sectors, Energy and Financials were up 1.27% and 1.18% respectively, with most other sectors breaking even over the course of the afternoon after a slow start – Consumer Services was down the most (0.96%) at close of play.
Inflation blamed on rates blamed on inflation …
The Federal Government is pointing to successive interest rate rises to explain the state of the economy, as it awaits more weak data due on Wednesday.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government was walking a fine line between bringing down inflation and further pressuring people "already being hammered by higher interest rates".
Supplying an explanation for the potentially bad economic news on the horizon, Chalmers said: "With all this global uncertainty on top of the impact of rate rises which are smashing the economy it would be no surprise at all if the national accounts on Wednesday show growth is soft and subdued.”
The persistently high inflation has stuck around for longer than the government had hoped, with headline inflation up 3.8% over the year to the June 2024 quarter.
And Chalmers would be sensitive to the number of interest rate rises on his watch. The RBA has raised rates 13 times since May of 2022 from 0.35% to 4.35% to try to cool inflation.
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Just the Facts: Sovereign Metals
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